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Ronnie’s coworker Yoshiko Sakei appeared in the next vision. Yoshiko came to the States for college and ended up marrying Erik Gross. She became an American citizen forty years ago. She’s nearing retirement, and she and Erik plan to move to Honshu. Yoshiko feels a secret guilt: she’s enjoyed the irresponsible freedom of a Japanese person living outside the home country.

Kyoto parade

Yoshiko tells Erik, “Let’s go back and care for my parents.” Erik likes the idea, because a Western man in Asia has lots of advantages. Gaigin aren’t expected to fit in.

They sell their home and plan to move as soon as Yoshiko stops working.

Miyajima

Kyoto train station

Kagoshima Aquarium

The vision shifts. Zen landscapes,

Bamboo forest

Zen garden

crowded city streets with tall buildings,

Tokyo

monks in yellow,

Kyoto temple

geishas in colorful kimonos,

salarymen in somber business suits all kaleidoscope through the dream. A few exquisite pieces of lacquer ware and a hand painted folding screen decorate a small space.

Zen interior

Yoshiko and Erik sit at a table across from an old Japanese couple with gentle smiles and parchment paper skins. The four of them drink tea. In the next scene they lie asleep in blankets on spotless tatami mats.

All four open their eyes as the light wood of the house splinters into match sticks. They look shocked in Ronnie’s direction – and the dream blows apart.

The ground stops convulsing and a gigantic wave with the salt of a billion tears engulfs the collapsed dwelling. Fires burn as poisons spill out into the land, air and waters.

It’s absolute devastation as far as the eye can see, whether on site or from across space and time. Ronnie sees the word TEPCO but has no idea what it means. A disaster is on the way, and her friends and every soul within hundreds of kilometers are doomed to die. Whether the death of one person or ten thousand, the outcome is unchangeable.

This dream of Japan contains only destruction of life and property and an aftermath that will linger, terrible, for generations. She can imagine what poisons are released; she can imagine, but she doesn’t want to.

***

Ronnie wept in great gasps and needed long minutes to convince herself that she wasn’t in the dream earthquake. All the same, she’d experienced a tsunami of the soul.

A disaster was going to strike northern Japan. What the hell could she do with the information, call the Prime Minister and warn him that he needed to put Japan on high alert? Contact TEPCO, whoever or whatever they were? Could she warn Yoshiko and Erik not to move, or to bring Yoshiko’s aged parents to them instead? She had nightmares for weeks.

Ronnie acknowledged the vision’s finality with a heavy heart. She went to going away parties and contributed to the fund for Yoshiko’s retirement present. She took part in the long goodbye with a smile whenever they met, knowing the parting would be final. When they left for Fukoshima, their absence felt like they were already dead.

That early farewell to Erik and Yoshiko pushed her into a deeper process of farewells. Ronnie was detaching more and more, from everybody and everything. She couldn’t be sure when the next person she knew would show up in a vision.

***

– from my chapter “Precognitious” in Tsunami Cowboys. Available online at amazon.com,amazon.de, and amazon in countries everywhere. This link gets you there.

Uwe’s photos of our trip to Japan and his photography may be viewed at viewpics.de.

Prepare to meet Todd, a hero with dangerous fantasies. Coreen, trapped in a cult. Ronnie, dreaming other people’s futures. Guy, waiting for disaster at a Christmas Market. And Lynn, the connecting thread, taking a train with a seductive stranger. By turns terrifying and funny, this is the story of people riding life’s waves… the tsunami cowboys.

It’s official: My new novel Tsunami Cowboys is available in paperback and eBook versions. Look for it on Amazon around the world. The following links will get you there for the US and Germany:Tsunami Cowboys (for Amazon.com) Tsunami Cowboys (Amazon.de)

I’m excited and proud and tired and floating on air. This book is the results of the last two years of writing. Thanks for your encouragement and support. It has made this journey a real pleasure.

The next morning as Ronnie ate a quick breakfast she asked, “Hal, do you ever have a dream that feels like it’s trying to tell you something?”

She’d blow dried her hair after showering, but wasn’t completely dressed. Hal grinned at her over the table, enjoying her curves and the lacy black slip peeking from under her bathrobe. “Something sure jolted you awake in the middle of the night. Why? What’d you dream?”

“It’s silly,” Ronnie qualified, but told him anyway. He listened to the surprisingly detailed description of what she remembered.

“Honey,” he said fondly when she finished, “it’s a no-brainer. Losing your marbles? Magic and games? Waking up just before you die is classic. Freud would probably say it’s an anxiety dream, fear and desire. Thanatos and Eros fighting it out. What were you afraid of?”

“That’s not it. It wasn’t me who died.” Restless, she began to clear away the breakfast things.

Hal checked the time, then got up and helped. “How can you know?” he queried as he put leftover rolls in a bag. “With dreams no one knows. Personally, I think the brain’s just clearing the decks for the next morning.” Hal was a big man with shaggy hair and precise mannerisms; as always, his reasoning was logical.

“No, that’s not it, either!” Ronnie’s words were louder than she intended. “It was uncanny. I need to get ready for work,” she muttered, and headed off to iron a skirt.

At the office she was preoccupied and distant, thinking back to the college mixer where she’d met Reggie. Reginald and Veronica, both anxious to shed those old fashioned monikers as fast as possible. “Reggie and Ronnie, how perfect is that? Like in the comics, right?” he’d said. “We just need Archie. You really ought to go out with me! With these names you know we’re fated.”

She gave him her number, charmed and intrigued. They’d had a grand time together. After college they parted with great affection, headed for destinies in copywriting (hers) and medical research (his). That had been eight years ago.

At lunch time Ronnie headed down the boulevard and waited at a corner with a long stoplight. Who strode across the street? Reggie.

Her old lover, beardless with short hair, didn’t look up until he was at the curb and almost ran into her. “Ronnie!” He stared, taking in the sight of her wind-blown curls and maroon blazer buttoned over a short skirt and high heels. “Good god, woman. You look great! Man, it’s good to see you!” Reggie gave her a bear hug.

She blushed. “Do you have time for a cup of coffee?”

“I don’t,” he said regretfully. “I promised my wife I’d buy her a couple mystery novels. Jane always takes at least one when we do a trip. We’re flying to Greece!”

Ronnie took a step back and almost fell off the curb.

“What is it?” Reggie smiled. “The news I got married? We met at the lab, five years ago.” He looked down at her hands and saw Ronnie had a wedding band of her own. “Looks like you did, too!”

She trotted down the sidewalk alongside him to the bookstore. He chattered as he picked over newly released murder mysteries. “We booked a cruise to mark our anniversary. We finally get the honeymoon trip I wanted. It starts with a flight to Athens. Business class,” he bragged.

They joined the line of customers waiting to pay, and Ronnie felt a crushing anxiety. “When do you fly out?”

“Friday.”

She blurted, “Reggie, do me a favor? Please? If you get delayed, don’t feel like you have to break speed records getting to the airport.”

Reggie fumbled and dropped the books cradled in the crook of his elbow. She ducked down to help pick them up. They bumped heads. He gave her a searching look and rocked back on his heels, still crouched in the middle of the line. “What’s up, Rondicious?”

Everyone around them stared, openly eavesdropping.

Ronnie blinked back unexpected tears at the old endearment. “Just, there are plenty of other flights if you miss that one, okay? I know what I’m saying sounds insane. I have this premonition, and I’ve never had one like it. It’s, a sense of foreboding,” she clarified. She felt like a complete idiot.

But as they stood back up, he nodded. Reggie wore a thoughtful look. “You know, for some reason I’ve got a weird feeling about the flight, too.” He plopped the books onto the counter and got out his wallet. “Must be that old connection we always had. I don’t think you sound silly at all. You never did.”

Back on the street they exchanged addresses and numbers. He rewarded her with one last, fast hug. Ronnie watched as he hurried down the block.

“Have a great honeymoon-wedding anniversary-vacation!” she called after him. Reggie disappeared around the corner and she felt a strange tug, as if the sense of foreboding had let her go. She wasn’t sure what had just happened, and hoped that it was a renewed hello rather than a goodbye.

On Friday night, the opening news story was the perplexing crash of Flight #423. The report ended with a telephone number and website for people to contact. Ronnie felt like a stone dropped from a great height, falling with the gravity of the gruesome details.

She barely made it to the bathroom and threw up. Then she picked up the telephone and punched out the digits to ask if Mr. Reginald Broadmaster and his wife Jane had taken that flight.

***

Prepare to meet a hero with dangerous fantasies. A young woman trapped in a cult. A person who dreams other people’s futures. A man drinking glühwein at a Christmas Market as he waits for disaster. And Lynn, the connecting thread, taking a train trip with a seductive stranger. I’ll be posting the first pages to each chapter.

Committing my characters to an appearance on this blog makes them real. As of tonight, they exist beyond my imagination.

Here are the opening pages to my novel (Name being withheld until publication date). This third chapter is titled, Precognitious.

“We swim, day by day, on a river of delusions, and are effectively amused with houses and towns in the air, of which the men about us are dupes. But life is a sincerity.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Uses of Great Men” in Representative Men, 1850.

It’s All Greek To Me

On the Summer Solstice Ronnie turned thirty-two, and that night she dreamed the future.

Three things happen. A truck from ‘The Magnificent Mario’s Curio Shop’ drives down a highway. It scrapes against the dividing railing and the back doors spring open. A crate falls out and bursts. Jacks and marbles scatter across the asphalt.

The scene shifts. Her old college boyfriend Reggie climbs in a cab. He no longer has a beard and his hair is shorter, but otherwise he looks exactly the same. Reggie’s with a female companion; somehow Ronnie knows it’s his wife Jane. The cab driver, Jane and Reggie watch as highway employees in neon orange overalls scrub the road. Marbles roll this way and that, dodging the broom bristles. Glass bits glitter in the sunshine.

Lanes filled with cars, trucks, motorcycles and busses all wait for the cleanup to finish. Ronnie doesn’t sense horns honking in any dimension. The people stuck in traffic watching the bizarre sight taking place are too stunned. They laugh as they climb out of their vehicles to snap photos with their cell phones. Check it out! W8’ll u c this!

Jane leans over the seat. “Is there anything you can do?”

The taxi driver shakes his head, shrugs his shoulders. But he turns off the meter, acknowledging they’re all stuck. The cabbie won’t try to make an extra buck off the bizarre incident.

Yet another shift. A plane lifts off the runway, gains altitude – and plunges from the skies. Ronnie doesn’t see the actual crash but knows that everyone on board just died.

All at once she’s weirdly cognizant that this is a dream. The back of her brain deduces she must be half awake, swimming up towards consciousness. She sinks back into the dream but retains that awareness. Just as she wonders whether she’s dreaming or awake, with the growing sensation that something very strange is going on, Reggie looks away from the clean up. He turns his head. And he stares her right in the eyes.

The next thing Ronnie knew, she was in her bedroom and sitting up in bed. She shook her husband. “I just had the weirdest dream! Wake up!”

Hal grunted and turned over. She lay down and tried to go back to sleep, but the strange images stayed fresh. Colored marbles rolled around in her head and winked, vivid and insistent. Finally she fell asleep, wondering what had ever happened to Reggie.

***

Prepare to meet a hero with dangerous fantasies. A young woman trapped in a cult. A person who dreams other people’s futures. A man drinking glühwein at a Christmas Market as he waits for disaster. And Lynn, the connecting thread, taking a train trip with a seductive stranger. I’ll be posting the first pages to each chapter.

Committing my characters to an appearance on this blog makes them real. As of tonight, they exist beyond my imagination.

Here are the opening pages to my novel (Name being withheld until publication date). This third chapter is titled, Precognitious.

What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! —Psalm 8:8

Revelations

Lynn turned off the classical music on the CD player and yawned, pleased. She’d gotten a lot done. Summer session hadn’t begun yet and the campus was quiet. Cars loaded with new graduates and their belongings had left days earlier.

She’d propped her office door and windows open. When she leaned back an afternoon breeze fluttered across her skin. Outside, three crows argued from the top of a Douglas fir as a radio blared. And someone cried. Sobs swelled in waves as the crier gained and lost, regained and relost control.

The crying came from inside the building. Lynn got up and went to the door to listen; it was a woman’s voice. She walked down the hall and came to a stop outside the bathroom. As she hesitated, wondering if she should go in or not, the door opened with a yank.

The young woman in a rumpled blouse over new jeans jumped when she saw Lynn. ‘Ask me about my frontal lobotomy’ suggested a pin on her chest. Her face was blotchy and dripped with tears.

“Aren’t you the Girl Friday who started working here the end of the semester? Coreen, right?” Lynn held out a tissue.

The girl tried to answer, but could only hiccup. Her face grew redder.

When Lynn touched her shoulder she trembled. “I’m Professor McCready. Coreen, are you okay?”

Coreen fell forward into the older woman’s arms.

Lynn propelled her down the hall to the corner armchair in her office. Coreen kept shivering. Lynn returned to the bathroom for a stack of paper towels. When she brought them back, she touched Coreen’s shoulder to get her attention. “Somehow I don’t think regular tissues can handle all the tears you’ve got in you.” She handed them to Coreen and placed a tall glass at the girl’s elbow. She touched the shoulder again, and returned to her desk.

The simple props of a water glass, a comfortable armchair and a large supply of utility paper towels were exactly what Coreen needed. She cried for another fifteen minutes. The hic! hic! staccato slowed as her crying jag spent itself. When it finished she sat damp and exhausted, her body folded tight.

Lynn set down the article proof she was editing. “Come on,” she said, and got to her feet. “I could use something to eat. I bet you could, too. Do you like Vietnamese?”

Over dinner the girl stayed silent, picking at her food and chewing her fingernails. Finally she blurted, “Did you ever think the world was ending?”

“Literally?”

Coreen hesitated and then nodded her head. Yes.

“That it would end, no. That it might break me, once.”

“What happened?”

“I discovered the heart of darkness when I was your age.” She knew Coreen was bracing herself to open up. Quietly Lynn revealed, “I went through an experience I thought would scar me and follow me around forever. Like, it would identify me for life. And then it didn’t. But I know what it feels like when a wave of panic hits. Or a crying jag. If you can, tell me what’s got you so terrified that you hide in the bathroom.”

Coreen put down her fork, took a deep breath, and told her.

***

Prepare to meet a hero with dangerous fantasies. A young woman trapped in a cult. A person who dreams other people’s futures. A man drinking glühwein at a Christmas Market as he waits for disaster. And Lynn, the connecting thread, taking a train trip with a seductive stranger. I’ll be posting the first pages to each chapter.

Committing my characters to an appearance on this blog makes them real. As of tonight, they exist beyond my imagination.

Here are the opening pages to my novel (Name being withheld until publication date). This second chapter is titled, The End Of The World.

Jadi Campbell lives in Germany and spent a decade writing as European Correspondent. She received a B.A. in English Literature from the Honors College of the University of Oregon. Jadi has traveled across 4 continents with her husband and begun exploring their 5th. Travel and life abroad provide the perfect inspiration for her tales. In September 2012 her first novel "Broken In: A Novel in Stories" appeared. "Tsunami Cowboys" was published in December 2014. "Grounded" came in May 2016. All books are available on Amazon. She is President of the Writers in Stuttgart, a job akin to herding cats... Go to her author page to read reviews by readers and learn more about Jadi at https://www.amazon.com/author/jadicampbell.